


This is No Life - Part 2

by MiaCousland



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-08-29 19:32:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16750255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaCousland/pseuds/MiaCousland
Summary: Orsino and his band of apostates have reached Tantervale.  What they find there is not at all what the former First Enchanter was hoping for - a city brimming with mage hatred.What should he do?  Help the mages in peril trapped inside such a city, or leave with mages he led away from Kirkwall?  He knows death lies all around him for the group.  However, somewhere here hides the malificar he has been chasing.-------This is the second part of a wider story, started in This is No Life.  Please check it out.





	This is No Life - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The apostates have arrived in Tantervale to find a city brimming with confusion and danger.

Enzo welcomed them in under the auspices of a full moon and sky full of stars.  Bundled silently up the servants stairs to their quarters at the top of the building, they sat pale and panting on the cots and chairs. Orsino had strode to the window.  His eyes sought the corners of the shadows but he could see no-one.  With a full moon, the unworldly light threw shadows that tricked the senses. Hard he stared, anxious to know if anyone had followed them.

Walter stared into the ether, a thick rivulet of blood flowing from his matted hairline, trailing down across his jaw.  Iselle and Peter sat with him, a rag already in Iselle's hand trying to staunch the bleeding.  There was no way of knowing whether Walter even heeded them.  He sat mute and still.  Randall groaned and clutched his ankle, desperately trying to bring forth power to heal it.  The entry into the city, and subsequent chase, had left the students terrified.  The silence spoke out to Orsino and he frowned.  They were even afraid to move.  His eyes flicked between all of them and he sent a strong pulse of healing magic out into the room.  Walter groaned and hissed as he focused back on the room, suddenly realising that Iselle held cloth up against the open wound.  Randall's mouth slowly spread into a relaxed smile as he used the boost to mend his knee and dull the pain.  Orsino's shoulders relaxed slightly at the loosening of tense spirits and he returned to his watch.

John entered the room, laden with a tray that clinked and rattled.  Their cold, shaking hands had gratefully wrapped around cups of hot broth that were hastily given.  Muted whisperings between Iselle and Peter, and the odd groan from Randall, punctured the frightened silence.  Orsino's eyes flitted over all of them.  With a grimace, Walter pushed himself to standing.

"I'm so sorry." he said to the room, but locking eyes with Orsino.  "I had no idea ..."  
"No idea your man was a thief and a charlatan?" snapped John.  
"He wasn't 'my man'.  He was a trader I thought I could trust!" Walter implored.  "How was I to know?"  
"We barely escaped with our lives!"  
"Slavers are everywhere," Randall argued.  "There was no way we could have known."  
"We should have been more careful.  We should have seen!" Peter said, more to himself than to those gathered.  Iselle reached out and took his hand, squeezing it with a scant smile.  
"We're here now.  We're safe." she reassured him gently.   He looked up to meet her eyes but sighed, returning to stare past the floor.  
"We have slavers after us as well now," Peter groaned, "as well as Templars."  
"I killed two, John another, and Orsino the last one." Walter clamoured.  "They are after us no longer."  
"And their associates?" Peter asked quietly.  "What of those?"  
"We can deal with them later."  
"You think they will forgive this?" boomed John.  
"Forgive?  Maybe.  Forget?  Who knows?" an unfamiliar, wheezing voice said from the doorway.

The group looked over to see a man of fifty years leaning on the doorframe.  He breathed heavily as if it pained him to climb so many flights of stairs, and as he moved to an empty chair near to where Orsino stood, there was an awkward stiffness to his movement.  He hobbled instead of walked and it was with a wincing, grateful smile that he took the seat.

"For those worried about alerting the Templars, did any of you use your magic?"

There was a certain amount of worried shuffling.  Randall sat a little more forward in his chair and stared at the man.  Peter flashed worried eyes to Orsino who smiled to reassure him.

"No," Orsino said quietly.  "No-one did.  I'm afraid blood was spilt the old-fashioned way." he said as he felt his cheeks sear.  
"With blades and muscle." Walter grimaced as he took the cloth from Iselle and walked to a mirror.  Wincing, he frowned as he stared at the dried blood.  "Although I prefer it when it when the blood is someone else's."  
"Tantervale has nightly arguments within its walls.  Various factions vye for power here as anywhere.  Lesser gangs will move on other patches.  Unfortunately, there is a criminal element here as in any other city.  If you did not use your magic, your actions last night will raise little energy from the Templars."  
"But the slaver gang ... ?"  
"I'm pretty sure it was the White Eyes." Walter said seriously from the mirror.  He turned and met Enzo's eyes.  
"Hmmm," Enzo mused, sharing a meaningful look with the inn owner, pursing his lips.  "That  _could_ prove problematic.  Hopefully not though."  
"How so?" Orsino asked.  
"Well, they are one of the larger groups, and can be fairly bloodthirsty."  He slapped his thighs and the sober reverie fell from him.  "But tonight you are safe.  You may sleep and eat and be worry free.  You are in my inn now." he smiled as he pushed himself to standing.  "I will send more food up and you will sleep sated.  Madam," he turned to Iselle, "I have a spare room prepared for you, if you wish."

Iselle's cheeks flushed but mutely she nodded and rose.  Retrieving her bag from the floor, she turned back to Enzo with a smile.  He slowly walked across the room with her but on the threshold turned back to them.  

"This is my inn and within these walls I can protect you.  If you must venture out, do so in groups.  However, I ask that here you do not use magic and risk the curiosity of the Templars.  This city is a stronghold of theirs after all."  There was a silent assent from the tired travellers.  Enzo smiled kindly at the nods of heads before flashing his eyes at the First Enchanted.  "Orsino, I would like a word in my parlour in fifteen minutes, please?  It's the nearest door to the stairs on the first floor."

 

 *

 

Orsino stared past the leaded window out onto the dark street below, his eyes vaguely seeing the few people that trod the muddy cobbles even at this early hour.  From the scant view he had seen of Tantervale, it was fair different in style to the southern, port town of Kirkwall.  Here there were tall wooden buildings with a slim elegance, not the harsh cut stone of his former home.  He assumed there were more permanent stone structures; the forbidding city walls gave proof there were quarries nearby.  The Goose Inn was housed in between tall buildings with floors that overhung each other.  It was a squat, quiet place of not many floors that sat innocently between it's taller neighbours.  It was an old place but some loving hand made sure that the plaster was smooth, and that the walls were painted, and that the curtains in their rooms were old but patched and sewed.  Someone took pride in this inn.

In the room behind him, four men lay sleeping peacefully.  With the promise of a locked door and a protective eye watching over them, they had fallen into a slumber deeper than they had known for a long while.  The attic was small but managed to hold two beds on one wall with the opposite holding the other two.  There was a small aisle between the footboards that allowed Orsino to walk softly along, making sure his charges were okay.  His own bed was in the bay window and it was in the small gap between cot and pane that he stood now, pondering what he had learned that night.

Enzo had delivered news of a city in turmoil.  The Templar nights were more vigilant in their pursuit of mages, even more than usual.  A thrill of peril ran through Orsino but he had pushed it far down as he listened intently.  There was a new fervour that had gripped it, Enzo described, and he could not account for the change.  It had been building for a few months, he said, but had become akin to paranoia.  Mansions were raided, the homeless dragged off the streets and tortured for information, banks seized if there was even a slight suspicion they were funding mages.  The Tantervale Circle was bound by a ring of steel so tight that it was rumoured the Circle held mages already taken by demons, and somehow the Templars had managed to cage them.  Enzo had told him of Templars on every corner watching, waiting for something to happen.  Primed to jump should an apostate be foolish enough to whisper even a simple cantrip.

Orsino sighed gravely through his nose and looked down at the piece of paper in his hand.  Another letter from Varric.  He scanned the lines again, feeling waves of hostility and nerves war inside him.  He sat down onto the side of the bed and stared at the few stars he could see.  Dawn was beginning to break.  From months travelling through the countryside, from all those mornings he had watched over his students, he knew by the lightening of the sky that the sun would rise in an hour.  Already lights flickered on in a few of the buildings around him.  What would the new day bring?  Would it be a battle of steel and wits?  Would they survive the day even?  Somewhere inside him, past the knot in his stomach, he knew somehow they would.

There was so much to do.  There was, even in Tantervale, a mage underground working against the steel fortress of the military arm of the Chantry.  Enzo's network of contacts throughout the city would bring them a name before another night fell.  They needed an introduction.  They also needed any news on Cael.  Something played with the fears in the back of Orsino's mind on why the state of the city was so tense.  There must be a reason.  There was also the problem of the White Eyes that had almost caught them.  

And then there was the letter.  Again he read it, not wanting to believe the contents, yet at the same feeling every fibre yearn to believe it.

 

_O -_

_Even I have sent a prayer or two to the Maker in the hope that you've got this far.  My old friend, I hope you did._

_Tantervale is in fevered state right now.  Something is stirring the city into a storm.  Please - watch out for yourself.  Enzo is a good man, but since when did I pick fools to be friends with?_

 

The above had been written in neat penmanship and Orsino could almost see the dwarf sitting at his writing desk, plumed pen in hand.  A smile rose unbidden at the memory.  However, the rest had been scrawled, ink spattering the page from where Varric had scratched the paper hurriedly.

 

 _O, since writing the above, I have had a letter put into my hand that I can hardly believe myself.  I have had news of the most serious kind.  Our friend?  Blondie?_ _He is there.  In Tantervale.  I don't know where nor how to get in touch but I have had a report from a source I trust.  I will write more when I have more information, although you may be better placed to find out yourself.  Wouldn't mind getting something back this way when you've got time._

_Take care._

_\- Varric._

 

Orsino swallowed against a dry throat.  That man, that  _monster_ , was within his grasp.  The hand that held the letter clenched into a fist, crumpling the paper.  He snarled to himself.  The venom had been the only thing driving him forward.  The fate of magekind had been forever fractured by what this  _maleficar_ had done and that Orsino could not forgive.  He had had to suffer the real fear of the Rite of Annulment falling down on him and those he had led from their infancy.  The hatred boiled up inside him but with a will of iron, Orsino pressed his lips together and calmed himself down.  He glanced over his shoulder at those who slept safe in their beds.  For them, he would watch Anders burn.


End file.
